Swrve is a multi-channel customer engagement platform that provides hyper-targeting and hyper-personalization in real-time to automate relevant moments of interaction that acquire, retain and monetize customers.
The Swrve SmartTV SDK enables your app to use all of these features on the Tizen (Samsung) or webOS (LG) TV platforms. This guide contains all the information you need to integrate the SDK into your Samsung or LG TV app.

Requirements

If you download the SwrveSDK production bundle and include it via script tag, there are no additional dependencies.

If you want to compile the SDK bundle from source, you will need Node.js 8+ and Yarn 1.5+.

The App ID and API Key for your app. This information is available in Swrve on the Integration Settings screen (on the Settings menu, select Integration settings).

Installing the SDK

Swrve has an open source SDK repository. There are two options for downloading the latest public Swrve SmartTV SDK:

Install the SDK using npm (node package manager).
Run the following command: npm install @swrve/smarttv-sdk.

Initializing the SDK

Depending on your data requirements, Swrve stores all customer data and content in either our US or EU data centers. If your app uses EU data storage and URL endpoints (that is, you log into the Swrve dashboard at https://eu-dashboard.swrve.com), include the EU stack information in the example below. If you have any questions or need assistance configuring the SDK for EU data storage, please contact support@swrve.com.

To initialize the SDK, create an instance before your application starts. Replace <app_id> and <api_key> with your app ID and API key.

Using the SDK bundle with a script tag

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<script src="SwrveSDK.js"></script>

<script>

SwrveSDK.createInstance({

appId:<app_id>,

apiKey:"<api_key>",

//stack: "eu", **To use the EU stack, include this in your config **//

});

</script>

Using the SDK when installed from npm

When using ES5 modules, require the SDK as follows:

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varSwrveSDK=require("swrvesdk");

SwrveSDK.createInstance({

appId:<app_id>,

apiKey:"<api_key>",

//stack: "eu", **To use the EU stack, include this in your config **//

});

Or you can import it it as an ES6 module:

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import SwrveSDK from"swrvesdk";

SwrveSDK.createInstance({

appId:<app_id>,

apiKey:"<api_key>",

//stack: "eu", **To use the EU stack, include this in your config **//

});

If there are any application event handlers the app needs to listen to, initialize them after you create the SDK instance. When the app is not displaying an in-app message, the SDK ignores any non-SDK related interaction events and they are handled by your own application handlers. Once an in-app message is displayed, the SDK takes over and blocks event propagation so that no accidental misclicks in the application can occur.

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SwrveSDK.createInstance({...});

document.addEventListener("keydown",onKeyPressed);

// other app initialization code

app.render();

User identity

Swrve supports an Identify API to find preexisting user identities that have been logged by an app either on a single device or multiple devices. You can now identify users and then track and target them safely across multiple devices, platforms and channels. For more information, see Tracking your users with Swrve User Identity.

Your external user ID is a non-discoverable key that identifies your user across multiple channels and platforms. Emails or other personally identifiable information (PIIs) are not accepted as external user IDs, they will be rejected on the server side.

Identify

Call the Identity API with your external user ID:

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SwrveSDK.identify(<external_user_id>,(error)=>{

if(error){

/** handle error*/

}

/** proceed with your application */

});

If the call fails, then the user will not be correctly linked on the Swrve backend system, which may affect reporting and audiences where the user is logging in on multiple devices. We recommend not queuing or sending events until the identify call completes.

In-app messages

Swrve’s in-app messages campaigns are available as soon as you complete the basic integration described above. These features enable you to send personalized messages to your app users while they’re using your app. For more information, see Intro to in-app messages.

To test in-app messages in your app, you need to first create the campaign in Swrve. For more information, see Creating in-app messages.

Message center campaigns

Use the following call to access campaigns that have the message center flag set in the Swrve dashboard:

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constcampaigns=SwrveSDK.getMessageCenterCampaigns();

campaigns.forEach((campaign)=>{

// custom campaign handling

});

If you want to control when the message is shown, there is a showCampaign method. For example:

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constcampaigns=SwrveSDK.getMessageCenterCampaigns();

SwrveSDK.showCampaign(campaigns[0]);

In-app message button focus style

The SDK includes the functionality to control the appearance of in-app message buttons when they are in focus. To change the button focus style, provide the related CSS attributes in the config:

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SwrveSDK.createInstance({

...

inAppMessageButtonStyle:{

border:"none",

},

inAppMessageButtonFocusStyle:{

border:"5px solid red",

},

});

Another approach is to use Swrve’s resource A/B testing feature to test different button focus styles. Specify a resource ID and set the attributes for the given resource in the Swrve dashboard.

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SwrveSDK.createInstance({

...

inAppMessageButtonStyle:"tv.demoapp.iambutton.style",

inAppMessageButtonFocusStyle:"tv.demoapp.iambutton.focus.style",

});

Sending events

The Swrve SDK automatically sends certain events and also enables you to track user behavior by sending custom events. (For a list of default Swrve events, see Segment and audience filters, Events.) In turn, you can use app-generated events to trigger in-app messages, while both app- and server-generated events help you define segments and perform in-depth analysis.

Custom events

To send a custom event, include the below example in a method where you want to send an event to Swrve.

SwrveSDK.sendEvent("custom.event_name");

Requirements for sending custom events:

Do not send the same named event with different case. For example, if you send tutorial.start, then ensure you never send Tutorial.Start.

Use a period (.) in your event names to organize their layout in the Swrve dashboard. Each ‘.’ creates a new branch in the Event name column of the Events report, and groups your events so they are easy to locate.

Do not send more than 1000 unique named events.

Do not add unique identifiers to event names. For example, Tutorial.Start.ServerID-ABDCEFG

Do not add timestamps to event names. For example, Tutorial.Start.1454458885

Do not use the swrve.* or Swrve.* namespace for your own events. This is reserved for Swrve use only. Custom event names beginning with Swrve. are restricted and cannot be sent.

Event payloads

You can add and send an event payload with every event. This allows for more detailed reporting around events and funnels.

Notes on associated payloads:

The associated payload should be a dictionary of key/value pairs; it is restricted to string and integer keys and values.

There is a maximum cardinality of 500 key-value pairs for this payload per event. This parameter is optional, but only the first 500 payloads are displayed in the dashboard. The data is still available in raw event logs.

If you want to use event payloads to target your campaign audiences, you can configure up to 10 custom events with a maximum of 10 payloads per event for audience filtering purposes. For more information, see Targeting your audience by event payloads.

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SwrveSDK.sendEvent("custom.event_name",{

key1:"value1",

key2:"value2",

});

For example, if you want to track when a user starts the registration process, it might make sense to send an event named registration.start and add a payload time that captures how much time it took the user to complete the registration.

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SwrveSDK.sendEvent("registration.start",{

time:"300",

step:"5",

});

Custom user properties

The Swrve SDK sends certain user properties by default and also enables you to assign custom properties to update the user’s status. (For a full list of the default user properties, see Assigning user properties.) When configuring custom properties for your OTT platform, the Swrve SDK only supports string values.

For example, you could create a custom user property called premium, and then target non-premium users and premium users in your campaigns.

Example of group of user properties

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SwrveSDK.sendUserUpdate({

premium:"true",

level:"12",

balance:"999",

});

Example of date-typed user property

Use the Date object to send a DateTime user property; for example, the current date at the time of a user purchase:

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SwrveSDK.sendUserUpdate({

last_purchase:newDate().toISOString(),

});

Virtual economy events

To ensure virtual currency events are not ignored by the server, make sure the currency name configured in your app matches exactly the Currency Name you enter in the App Currencies section on the App Settings screen (including case-sensitive). If there is any difference, or if you haven’t added the currency in Swrve, the server will ignore the event and return an error event called Swrve.error.invalid_currency. Additionally, the ignored events are not included in your KPI reports. For more information, see Add your app.

If your app has a virtual economy, send the purchase event when users purchase in-app items with virtual currency.

Resource A/B testing

Integrating Swrve’s resource A/B testing functionality enables you to use Swrve to test how users respond to changes to the native app content. For more information about resource A/B testing, see Intro to resource A/B testing.

To get the latest version of a resource from Swrve using the Resource Manager, use the following: